You Don't Know My Story
by DeathIsASalesman
Summary: My name is Ginny Weasley, and you don't know my story. You don't know it, but I saved the world. Very much AU.
1. Chapter 1

You don't know my story. How do I know that? Because only two people in this world know my story, and those two people are me and Harry Potter. There is no way you can be either of those people, so you do not know my story.

My story starts with a woman so desperate for a female offspring that she was willing to expel six babies from her cervix until she had one. It also starts with a man who was willing to jump off a bridge to see the aforementioned woman happy, and so filled his home with six sons until he knew that the aforementioned woman was now happy with her reproductive arrangement, perfectly content in giving five speeches about the penis going into the vagina and contraception charms and masturbation and all that fatherly stuff that I never heard about, because I was the daughter.

Yep, that's me. The daughter that was finally evicted from the aforementioned woman's uterus. Quite the claim to fame, no? Not quite as catchy as The-Boy-Who-Lived or "The Chosen One," but I guess I can deal. That's how my story starts. That's how I became Ginevra Molly Weasley, the daughter my mother spent her entire life hoping for, but tried very hard not to imagine, because she did not want to expect things of her daughter.

I suppose on that part, I'm lucky. I mean, I was the only daughter in a family of seven children. I'm lucky that my mum encouraged me to play Quidditch as long as I didn't get hurt and didn't mind that for an entire year when I was four years old I spent all the sunlight there was carefully constructing a mud-and-dirt city in the swamp behind Dad's Muggle shed.

I was always the creative one, I guess. Bill was the brave one, Charlie was the athletic one, Percy was the smart one, the twins were the funny ones, and Ron was the tough one. When we were little, Ron would always be very…Ronald-like. He'd fight to get his way, fight for his family, fight for his friends. He wouldn't ever allow people to fuck with him or anyone he determined "untouchable." By the time he got to Hogwarts, he had gotten a lot more insecure, and lost a lot of his fight. I think it was Harry and Hermione, mostly Hermione, that dragged it out of him again.

Meanwhile, I was the creative one. I did a lot of drawing and mud-city building and murals on my wall and I used to insist on arranging my food into something pretty before I would eat it. My mum didn't mind my art as long as she didn't have to clean it up afterward. She gave up on caring about the walls in my room by the time I was six. Besides, I always got angry when she cleaned them off without my permission.

My childhood was filled with a lot of twists and turns and abandonment and anger and rage and rebellion and evidently alliterations. By the time I was born, Bill was a year away from Hogwarts, and so I only saw him summer and winter holidays until I was about eight, when he up and left to Egypt. Charlie started Hogwarts when I was about three, and by the time the twins left for Hogwarts, he was in Romania training dragons. Then soon even Ron was gone.

Ron and I had always had a complicated relationship. We were too close in age to like each other, but we loved each other unconditionally. We fought all the time but at the end of the day, we'd always hug each other goodnight. When it really came down to it, we took care of each other. We kept each other from doing stupid shit and then saved each other's arses if we didn't succeed in stopping the other from doing stupid shit. It was a good arrangement we had.

Fred and George were the brothers I got along with best. They weren't prats, they didn't treat me like a child, and they let me in on their jokes. As I aged, and especially in Hogwarts, they even asked for my help in planning and executing quite often. The twins kind of raised me, a little. They toughened me up when I was a kid, but they also supported me in nearly everything.

Percy can pretty much lose the ability to fuck himself. The git never really paid much attention to any of his younger siblings unless to chastise them. He was always kind of rude to my parents just in the way that he felt since he was like three that he'd be more successful than them, which I always thought was rubbish because I had a suspicion that pompous loser would never quite grasp concepts like love and happiness as part of the concept of success. When I was a teenager I always figured he'd grow up to be some important government guy and on the weekends he'd just hop into a bar, score a good shag and never contact the girl again. He was an extraordinarily awkward adolescent, though I figured he'd grow up to be an overly arrogant player that didn't even need to be attractive because most the girls were too drunk anyway.

Now Charlie, he's a different story. I always thought he'd grow up to be alone but loved, you know? He'd have loads of friends and of course this huge extended family and he'd travel constantly and all our kids would anticipate exciting stories from Uncle Charlie and his excursions around the world. When I was little there was this tradition where he would take me for a ride on his broom during summers when he got home from school and we'd explore the world around us. He was the explorer and the athlete and the grinner. The guy always seemed to be happy to be wherever he was, to be doing whatever he was doing.

Bill was kind of the same way. He loved being the older brother, I think. He made about forty copies of the picture of three-year-old Ron on his shoulders with two-year-old me in his arms with his elbows resting on ten-year-old Charlie and seven-year-old Percy and one of the five-year-old twins attached to each leg. He had it in his wallet most his life and on his desk most his school and working career and on his mantle most of his retired life. He loved his family more than anything and he would do anything for them. That's where Ron got it from, I think, is Bill, but it wasn't quite as strong in Bill. Bill was a rock, not a protector. He'd be for you once shit went down, but as it was going down, you'd often be looking around for him.

I love my brothers. I love my brothers and I love my father and I love my mother. They turned me into the person I am today and have been all my life.

My family has always been there for me.


	2. Chapter 2

"_You did it, you know," he cackled. "You're the one who attacked them all, because you're just a stupid, worthless little girl who hasn't any common sense."_

_I was running from him, but his voice was impossible to escape, and the weakness was getting worse and the headache was blurring my vision._

"_Do you know who I am, girl?" he roared after me. "I'm not Tom Riddle anymore, I've changed! I've changed into someone a thousand times more powerful than Tom Riddle could ever be!"_

_I could barely see anymore and my legs were getting less and less stable._

"_I am Lord Voldemort, you foolish, empty girl."_

_And he started to show me the things that had filled the blank spots in my memory, and I wanted to gag, and I couldn't see reality, just the memories, and I screamed from pain and disgust and shame. I just screamed and screamed and screamed._

When Hermione woke me up that night I was confused for the first while because I didn't recognize the bedroom and usually Hermione doesn't sleep near me. But she sat on my bed that night, stroking my hair, an award-winning face of concern and horror on her face.

"Ginny, are you okay?"

"Hermione," I gulped. "What's going on?"

"You were crying out in your sleep for help."

"Was I?" I croaked. I remembered now that I was in the Leaky Cauldron, as our family had come here to be with Harry until we had to leave for King's Cross. Sitting up, effectively removing her hand from my hair in the process, I smiled weakly at her. She bit her lip.

"I've been meaning to ask you. How are you doing? With the whole Chamber, that is."

"Oh, you mean my being possessed by Lord Voldemort in order to attack Muggle-borns, including you? I'm superb. Never been better."

"Ginny…"

"I'm fine, Hermione," I snapped, lying back down. "I'm sorry I woke you up. Now please, go back to sleep."

"Please Ginny. What's wrong?"

"I don't want to talk about it, please. I'm tired and I want to go to sleep. Please."

Hermione sighed and nodded, standing up from the edge of my bed and walking over to her own. Just as she was about to turn out her light, I sat up again.

"Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"…Did I hurt you?"

She turned to me, a sad look in her eyes, and shook her head. "Just felt like a long, deep sleep."

XoXoX

I sat at the breakfast table the next morning with my hands to my head, as the pain I'd been feeling much of last year was getting especially bad. Harry kept looking sideways at me, causing me to blush each time. To tell the truth I was mortified that he had had to save me. I felt like a complete fucking fool. I desperately wanted to excuse myself from the table and asked my father if I could go browse the art shop in Diagon Alley with the pocket money Bill had snuck me in Egypt. He nodded and I got up to leave, before my mother freaked out about me not going places alone, pulling me off to the side where we had an enormous row.

This was no new event. My mother and I rowed all the time. In fact if we went a day without rowing, my brothers celebrated. Especially since Harry had rescued me from the Chamber, my mother had been particularly on edge and slightly darkened, but I had too. My mother never really understood the effect my first year had taken on me until I was fifteen-going-on-sixteen and shit really went down.

Eventually I got fed up and stormed away from my mother, figuring I had enough goddamn charcoal anyway, and retreated to the room Hermione and I were sharing to calm down. She, however, was in there.

"I didn't know you were an artist," she said, not even looking up from her book.

"If making doodles and sketches in my spare time qualifies me as an artist, then yeah, I'm an artist."

Hermione finally looked up from her book. "You know, it's okay if you're not okay."

"Are you okay?" I mumbled.

"Yes, I'm okay."

"Then I'm okay."

"That's not how it works, Ginny."

"Yes," I sighed. "It is. I hurt you. I'm not okay with that."

"I told you, you didn't hurt me. It was just like sleeping."

"Oh, come off it, Hermione. You missed days of classes, you didn't get to be part of Harry and Ron's annual death-defying adventure. You were Petrified. And because you're a Muggle-born, too. That has to hurt. It has to."

"I am okay, Ginny."

I sighed and shook my head, my eyes closed. "I am begging you, can we _please_ talk about something else, anything else?"

Hermione shrugged. "Okay. How about Harry?"

I glared at her. "What about him?"

"I saw you blush every time he looked over at you."

I chuckled. "Not what you think. I blushed because I'm mortified that he had to save my arse in the Chamber. I can't believe I was so stupid as to do all that. And whenever he looks at me with that 'I'm concerned' face, it just…makes it worse."

"Oh, don't worry about it. Harry loves saving people."

"But it was so stupid!"

"I imagine Ron would never shut up about it, but do you know _why_ they had to save me from the troll?"

"No, why?"

"Because I was in the washroom all day, crying, because Ronald made fun of my teeth."

I raised my eyebrow. "Not _quite_ the same, but I do appreciate the sentiment."

"So do you fancy Harry?"

I sighed. "Yeah…yeah, I think so. I get a headache whenever I'm around him."

Hermione looked at me oddly. "Is that a good thing?"

"I dunno," I shrugged. "But it's more, too. My heart skips a beat when he looks at me."

"Why him?"

I shrugged again. It was a bad habit of mine. "It used to be I just idolized him and thought he was this huge special hero. Now that's not the case. He's just…pure, you know?"

"Obviously, he's just now hitting puberty…"

I rolled my eyes. "_Honestly_ Hermione, that is not what I meant! I mean he's just so well-intentioned in everything he does."

"How do you know?"

"I just do," I shrugged. "I've six brothers, my number one talent is understanding people."

XoXoX

Getting on the train that year was a nightmare. Hermione would barely let me out of her sight for some reason, and as usual my mother had a protective and concerned air and eye. Ron and Harry seemed preoccupied with something I wasn't supposed to know about and the twins seemed preoccupied with something that I figured I would know about soon, when they pulled me into their compartment to pitch the idea.

I was correct on both accounts, as right after I got on the train, Ron told me to get lost, and as I was walking down the aisle, a hand reached out from a door and pulled me through abruptly.

"Gin," Fred said. "We need you."

"What am I doing this time?"

The twins exchanged looks and informed me in unison, "The Slytherins."

I sighed. "Whenever I'm around too many of them I get sick, so it better be something easy."

"What do you know about Fervidine Ius?"

"She makes me the sickest of them all," I groaned, then searched for more information. "Um…she's in my year, is a foul excuse for a human being…huge kiss-ass, too, bloody wretched at Charms, can barely Levitate a Galleon. I mean, she has some good in her, but it's buried just about as deep as it can be under a thousand pounds of evil. Oh, and makeup, too. And what she lacks in personality and goodwill, she lacks even more in good looks."

Fred and George exchanged a look; the room practically filled with their juvenile excitement and blatant misunderstanding of the concept of consequences. I raised my eyebrows.

"We just need you to keep an eye on her."

"Make sure she doesn't do anything funny."

"What do you mean by funny?"

"We mean just make sure she isn't acting dodgy."

"Why would she be acting dodgy? I don't understand."

"Because," George sighed. "We heard she knows some things."

"About what?"

"About you."

I stepped back. "What on earth would she know about me?"

"Well," Fred began. "Her father—"

"—is the head of the Unspeakables—"

"—even though he has a tendency to speak quite often—"

"—especially to his daughter."

I stared at them, the concern radiating off them, wondering why they had been so filled with mischief just seconds ago. "What's that to do with me?"

They exchanged a semi-frightened look. "The Unspeakables are the one that dealt with the fallout of the diary."

I straightened. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"So…what am I to do?"

"Just watch out for her."

"And if it seems she's acting oddly—"

"—tell us. We'll take care of it."

The mischief filled the room again as they exchanged looks and Fred shoved his hands in his pockets. "We've already got a few ideas."

I nodded, gulping. "All right. Well, thank you. For letting me know. I'll keep an eye out for Fervidine."

"Ginny, we're sorry," Fred called after me as I turned away. "We didn't handle this right."

I sighed. As usual, Fred felt slightly more guilty than George, but they both still felt very guilty. I turned around again.

"It's okay. You handled it fine. You warned me, that's all that matters. Thank you."

I waited for them to relax a little more before leaving, now looking around the compartments for either Decora or Luna. Passing by I saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione in a compartment. They all seemed very secretive and uneasy, so I just kept walking so as not to intrude.

But then, the train stopped, and all the lights went out, and I looked out the window of the nearest compartment to see that the rain was freezing over. Anger and confusion washed over the train, but fear was becoming strong as well, and so, now stuck in darkness and without anyone near me, I retreated back to the closest location I knew I would be safe—Ron's compartment.

When I entered there were everyone was wondering aloud what was going on, and I called out Ron's name.

"Ginny? What are you doing?"

"I was walking around the train, what's going on?"

"We don't know."

"Quiet!" It was a hoarse voice, and it sounded a bit tired. A sizzling sound filled the compartment, and a flickering light flooded in. The voice had come from a gray, tired face that was now standing, holding a handful of flames, his other hand near his wand. He was visibly protective over us, and I instantly trusted him. "Stay where you are."

The door slid open, and a cloaked figure illuminated by the flames was revealed. It was tall, but the bottom of its cloak wasn't touching all the way to the ground. I stared up at it in awe and fear as I started to hear raspy, long, slow breaths that sounded more like sucking than breathing, and suddenly, the room became foggy.

I could not collect any more information about them by the time something had completely overtaken my will. A certain darkness leaked inside me, and sadness from everybody filled the air, and I felt it washing over me stronger than ever before, and I felt as though it would never end. My insides froze over, probably permanently, overwhelming my muscle control.

Then I saw it.

I was in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom again, that horrible blood-colored paint on my hands, sobbing at the top of my lungs, that fucking diary ripping me apart from the inside, and I felt myself being taken over but I couldn't stop it, I could never stop it, and I thought that I would never be myself again, that I would always be a slave to Tom.

Then I heard it.

His cackle. The fucking cackle that haunted my dreams, that destroyed my entire self. God, did I want to scream. I wanted to scream more than anything else, even more than I wanted to pass out, or die, or just end it all right then.

When it did end, and the lights turned back on, I fell sideways onto Hermione's lap, shaking uncontrollably. As the fear slowly dissipated and was taken over by anxiety and bewilderment, I noticed that Harry was unconscious on the ground and sat up, still unable to control my convulsions.

"I-i-i-s-s-s-s h-h-h-he ok-k-k-kay?" I stammered, my teeth chattering.

Ron looked up at me. "I should ask the same of you. Merlin you're pale, Gin."

I waved him off, looking around. Ron and Hermione were the least affected, followed by a boy I recognized as Neville, one of the boys who shared the dormitory with my brother, followed by me, and then Harry was the most harmed, still unconscious. When he finally came to, he looked around, panicked. His eyes settled on me for a moment, before he asked what was going on.

"Dementors," said the man with the fire who I had completely forgotten was there. "Dementors, from Azkaban Prison." He pulled a bar of chocolate out of his briefcase and broke pieces off, giving small pieces to Ron and Hermione, a slightly larger piece to Neville, an even larger piece to me, and an enormous piece to Harry. "Eat. It will help. I need to go speak to the drivers…"

"Who screamed?" Harry asked, staring at me again. I looked over at Hermione, asking her with my eyes if I had succumbed to my desire to scream, but she was blatantly mystified.

"Nobody screamed, Harry."

I shakily moved the chocolate up to my lips and shakily took a bite. Warmth spread through me. Ron furrowed his eyebrows.

"Gin, you don't know who that guy is, he could have poisoned it or something."

I snorted and shook my head. "N-n-n-no. H-h-h-he's tr-tr-trus-t-t-tworth-th-thy."

"How on earth do you know that?" Hermione asked.

The man walked back in and smiled. "I haven't poisoned the chocolate, you know."

Between his words and mine, everyone in the compartment began to eat. The man sighed. "My name is Remus Lupin. Incidentally I'll be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year."

I was extraordinarily relieved that this Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was trustworthy and kind. Real. I knew Lockhart was a joke from the moment I saw him.

Once I had finished my chocolate, I actually did feel a lot better, and I stood up. Stumbling a little, I took a deep breath and turned to the inhabitants of the compartment.

"Well," I sighed. "this has been fun. I'm going to go make sure everyone is all right. See you later."

I stumbled out of the compartment, baffled by the amount of confusion inundating the train, trying to ignore the fear, and made my way toward Fred and George's compartment. After exchanging assurances that we were all fine, I staggered down the aisles once more until I finally found Luna and Decora.

I had known Luna Lovegood for years, even before Hogwarts, and she looked the way she had looked at her mother's funeral—hurt, trying to pretend she wasn't, impersonating her usual self. Her protuberant eyes were filled with sadness and fear, but staring lifelessly out the window, and her Quibbler lay next to her, untouched. Her platinum hair curtained her face, obstructing it from the world. Across from her sat Decora Godfried.

Decora Godfried was without a doubt the most beautiful girl I had ever encountered in my entire life. Even at eleven years old, Decora was absolutely gorgeous, in a way you could not even describe. Everything about her was just perfect. Not just in appearance, but in the very essence of her, as well. Always honest, always well-intentioned, always with the desire to help others, always cheerful.

Except right then. Right then, even she didn't seem so cheerful. Of course, even in her pain she was the most perfectly picturesque individual to ever walk the earth, but it destroyed me that she wasn't happy.

I wobbled into the compartment and sat down next to Luna, catching Decora's eye.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded, smiling hollowly. "Fine."

"It's okay if you're not," I whispered, and Decora looked at me and chuckled.

"You're like a human lie detector, Ginny, sometimes I haven't any idea what I'd do without you."

That made me happy, because once again, I knew she was completely honest in that statement, as always. Decora was one of those girls who I wanted to impress every moment I was around her. I was obsessed with her. I wanted her to think certain things about me, to have a certain image of me in her mind.

About three years later I figured out I had a dreadful crush on her for a very long time, but at twelve years old I was not really ready to accept the fact that I could be attracted to women.

Many people were worried on the train, confused as to what was going on. People kept coming by our compartment, as I seemed to be one of the only ones that understood what had occurred. Dementors. I knew all too much about them.

I couldn't get a word out of Luna the whole trip. She didn't even want to throw in her two pence about what had happened, didn't want to amend my explanation with some theory of a debatably existent creature. Even Decora was worried about her, which was odd because Decora really only spent time with Luna because I did, and though she'd never admit it, thought Luna was cracked.

When we filed off the train, I pulled Luna aside.

"Luna, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, not making eye contact, staring up at an angle with a faraway expression. "We both know what I saw, Ginny, and we both know what I experienced just now with the Dementors. When we get to the castle I'll write Dad about it and be normal again."

She walked off, gliding her hand over the bushes as she did. I sighed and followed Decora to the horseless carriages.

As usual, Luna did not attend the welcome banquet, but to be completely honest no one else did either. They were there, but their minds didn't focus much on the Sorting, and several people seemed to be curious about Harry's reaction to the damned things. Most of them seemed inclined to tease him, making me angry.

But all that went away when Dumbledore announced they'd be there all year long. Even I stopped focusing on other people and started to shake again, prompting Decora to wrap her arms around me.

It would be a long year.


	3. Chapter 3

My second year at Hogwarts was mostly a retry at my first year. I worked hard at school, made my grades, topped my classes, made some friends, made some enemies, got some stories to tell. Granted, I didn't have half the stories from that year as the "Golden Trio" did, but it was good all the same.

In my second year, I grew up a lot. The sobering experience of the diary really fucked up my psyche, and my second year was dedicated toward finding a perfect harmony between my paranoia and my free-spirit.

I also started to notice boys other than Harry. They were pretty. I wanted one of my own, in the least creepy fashion possible. That proved difficult, however, as it always seemed I was surrounded by at least one brother.

Hermione and I grew closer that year. We talked about things other than me apologizing profusely for my part in her Petrifaction and other than talking about Harry and Ronald. Hermione kept me secretly filled in with all the things going on with Harry and I talked back, throwing suggestions off her, ones which were usually shot down, but occasionally proved helpful. She always joked that I understood people's emotions enough for both me and Ron, and begged me to loan some of my empathy to him. If only that were possible.

I don't exactly know when I became Hermione's confidant, but I did end up knowing about the Time-Turner before anyone else. She trusted me for some reason, which is why I was put to the task of protecting Crookshanks from Ronald, which is why I could help her with her homework without her feeling embarrassed, which is why she told me everything, and which is why she worried about me so much.

It was the theme my second year. Everyone, even Ron and for a while Harry, was obsessed in making sure I was okay. I especially hated it when Hermione was the offender, as I knew she had about a thousand things on her mind more important than my state.

Regardless, such was life.

I'd like to say my second year was eventful. It really wasn't. I could tell you about the friends I made and how I made them, I could tell you about the classes or how impressed my professors were with me or how surprised I was with myself that I could achieve like I did, but none of that would really interest you.

I guess at this point, though, I'm obligated to tell you about Fervidine Ius. She had information about me, yes. I'm sure she wanted very much to use it against me, if she didn't fear me so much.

Half of it was the twins, yes. Another half was the fact that I had mindfucked her all year. She's a very stupid girl, and even if she had the courage to blackmail me, she hadn't the cunning. She was easily intimidated by my minor threats and tiny mind tricks, enchanting her quills so they refused to absorb ink, removing all the words from her textbooks for a night, with tiny exploding scrolls as my calling card. She knew it was me, and stupid as she may be, she was smarter than to rat me out to anyone, for the pranks or the diary.

Fred and George essentially nominated me for sainthood after that year. Hermione chided me often after she figured out what was going on. No one else ever knew. My feud with Fervidine lasted many years after that, and many years later Harry laughed at the parallels to the situation between he and Draco.

After my second year, things started happening. I became important.

When we left King's Cross Station in June, the headache that had persisted all year almost immediately faded to a dull ache. I had begun to chalk it up to stress and brush them off. That summer, I decided I was going to relax. I was going to turn thirteen, I was "officially" going to be a teenager, and I was going to celebrate that by floating in the lake by the Burrow and by lazily flying around the paddock when my brothers weren't paying attention.

God, if only I could have done that.

No, instead I had about two weeks of paradise before the headaches starting coming back. More nightmares, of things from my first year and of things that I could hardly distinguish, but that filled me with fear and jerked me awake in cold sweats, panting for air.

When Dad came home announcing he had tickets for the Quidditch World Cup, and that Charlie and Bill would both be coming home for it, I figured nightmares and headaches be damned, this would be the best summer ever. Ron won the draw for whose friends could go with, but it wasn't as if any of us were complaining. I loved Hermione, sometimes even more than I loved Decora and Luna, and knew that Harry would be in heaven at anything to do with Quidditch. Fred and George couldn't complain because really, all they needed to be happy was each other, and besides, if they complained about anything, Mum would shove a turkey up their arses.

All because of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, their one true dream in life. A joke shop, for which they had begun to develop products. Mum was furious about it, as she wanted them to be successful and join the Ministry like Dad and Percy. Unfortunately, she chose Percy as her example.

Percy had never been more hated in this house until he started working for the Ministry. It destroyed everything, even in the beginning, when he would go on for hours about how important his work with cauldron bottoms was. He was very proud of his work, though, and so I tried to be nice, but he was too infuriating and… immodest. It wasn't just pride, it wasn't harmless gloating, he legitimately thought he was better than everyone in the room. And I couldn't take that.

Neither could the twins. Percy was tortured all summer.

The summer passed relatively quickly before the Quidditch World Cup. With the Death Eaters and the chaos and the confusion, time slowed significantly.

Though I refused to show it around my family, the fact that it was Muggles the Death Eaters were torturing fucked with me, especially with the sheer terror evident all around. When Hermione and I returned to our tent later that night, I couldn't stop shaking, and the rare event occurred when she needed to hold me for a very long time until I calmed down. But she did, and I apologized a lot, and she told me it was unnecessary, and we went to bed, and she slept and I had a nightmare and could not find it in myself to go back to sleep.

The next day I listened to Hermione rant intently about the mistreatment of house elves, completely agreeing with her, yet unable to gather the energy to fight alongside her.

When we went home, Mum had had a revelation or something about the twins and she was now fully supportive or whatever and she was in love with them and wouldn't let go of them for days so I just kind of curled up in a ball under my sheet and stayed there until my mother came searching for me.

"Ginny, dear?" she asked, sitting down on my bed. I threw the sheet off my head and looked at her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I mumbled, grabbing the sheet again, but her hand stopped me.

"You're not."

I sighed, sitting up. "…Does this mean he's coming back?"

She sighed, too—obviously this was the one question she hoped I wouldn't ask. "I don't know, dear. Nobody does, not for sure."

Shaking my head, I took a deep breath, willing myself against tears. "Was it me? Was it the diary, did I do something, did I help him gain power?"

"We can't know."

I snorted. "Lovely."

Since I refused to say another word after that, she kind of left for lack of anything else to do. I continued to stay curled under my bedsheet.

I wish I could comment on the rest of the summer, but honestly the next thing I remember is sitting in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room on the first Thursday after we returned to school, unable to sleep due to haunting dreams, and as usual after my nightmares, my head pounded with pain, a pain that got slightly worse when Harry came downstairs.

"Oh," he said. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I mumbled. "Would you like to join me?"

He nodded, though reluctantly. I could tell he too had had nightmares, or at least trouble sleeping. Since it was a warm, slightly sticky night, he wore no shirt, just his dressing gown tied loosely over his pyjama pants.

"So, er…what brings you down here?"

I simpered. "I just really like these chairs."

He laughed. "Yeah, me too."

He then sat down, staring awkwardly at me, and asked, "Er…how have you been?"

"I'm fine, and you?"

"Good," he said, looking at me with doubt. "You're sure you're fine?"

"Oh, yes. Spiffing, really. Can't think of a time when I was any better."

"Ginny—"

"Oh, calm down, Harry. I'm fine, I swear."

He sighed, shifting his position so he was lying across the chair, resting his head on his arm.

When he did, his dressing gown slipped from his shoulder, and he pulled it up quickly, but not before I noticed the enormous, hideous yellow, brown, and green bruise painted across it.

"What happened to your shoulder?"

"Oh…n-nothing. It's nothing," he said, trying to sound calm, but I could tell he was a bit unnerved.

"It's not nothing, what the hell happened to you?"

Harry sat straight up, closing his dressing down tight around him. "It's nothing. Just something I got playing Quidditch."

"You didn't get on your broom once this summer."

"I…I know. I meant I got it at the Quidditch World Cup, when I was going through the forest."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, Ginny, I did."

I knew he was lying. He was panicked, he was worried, he was sheltered. He was hiding something. He was lying to me. I knew it, but I couldn't prove it yet.

"I could heal it, if you'd like me to," I blurted, standing up, taking my wand from the waistband of the jeans I had never bothered to take off, approaching him. He cowered away, pulling his clothes even tighter around him.

"No, no, that's okay," he murmured. "Not necessary."

"Oh, come off it, Harry. I'm not planning on molesting you. I'm trying to help. I got quite good at Healing spells, honest. It looked like it hurt. I can make it stop hurting."

He shook his head, waving his hand away. "It doesn't hurt at all, actually. It's one of those deceiving injuries, that looks absolutely dreadful, but you barely even notice it's there."

I tilted my head, now curious. Stepping closer to him, I poked his shoulder with my wand, causing him to wince. He tried to hide the fact that he winced, but he couldn't.

"Harry," I whispered. "Show me. Whatever you're hiding, you're doing a foul job at it. I'm not going to pretend this is nothing, because you're making it seem like it's something. What's going on?"

He stared up at me, and his lip quavered for a moment before he looked down at his sash, untied it, and opened up his dressing gown for me.

All up and down his chest and stomach were bruises and scars. I recognized these injuries. There were some burn marks, some that looked like they had been caused by broken glass, others that looked like they had been caused by a switch of some kind.

I almost didn't need the look on his face or the emotions pouring off of his soul to know that these were not accidental.

"H-Harry—"

He stood up and grabbed me roughly by the shoulders. "You can't tell anyone, Ginny. You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone."

"Harry, this is ridiculous! You can't keep this secret, you have to tell someone! McGonagall, Dumbledore, Sirius. Hell, tell my mother. You can't let this continue."

"Promise me, Ginny, promise me you won't tell anyone."

"I can't promise that! What, are you just going to go back there this summer and let this happen again? This has to stop!"

"No, no, no! I can't, okay? I can't. I just—" he choked on his words, and all the anger that had been present before, all the fear and need to solve the problem, had dissolved into pure, utter sadness. He let out a sob and collapsed back into his chair, crying for the first time since I had met him. His sadness was so strong, it took over all my emotions as well, and I had no other choice but to plant myself on his lap and fold him into a hug, allowing him to sob into the crook of my neck.

We didn't say any words that night. Not until sunrise, when Harry sniffed and said that he was going to go have a shower before anyone came downstairs to see him crying. He cried a lot. I didn't. I held it together for him that night, but as soon as he left, I cried silently for him. He was lost. I could feel it. He had been lost for years, and when he thought that, finally, he was away from all the abuse, from all the hurt, I had found out about it, and he could not deny the truth any longer. He had to face it.

I knew that this was his fear before he even told me. Don't ask me how. I didn't know the answer to that question and that point, so you have no reason to either. What I did know was that Harry was hurt, and it was my job to comfort him.

Years later he told me it was the first time he had ever been hugged like that. He said nobody had ever hugged him to take care of him before, to make him feel better. He said Hermione hugged him to say hello or thank you and even thank God, but never as comfort.

I couldn't stop thinking about Harry the next day. I barely paid any attention during my classes, and when my classmates bashed Snape I didn't even notice, let alone tell them off like I usually did. When Fred and George came up to me asking for help to enter the Triwizard Tournament, I simply mumbled that they were underage and should forget it, before walking away, leaving them baffled.

I felt guilty. I knew I had to tell someone, but I wanted Harry to be okay with it first.

Hermione approached me in the common room that night, asking what was wrong. Apparently we were supposed to study at lunch or something and I forgot. I blamed it on nightmares, promised to help her study the following day, and brushed off all her concerns about me.

Tacitly, Harry and I agreed to stay in the common room that night until all others went to sleep. After Ron retired to sleep at about midnight, Harry walked over to me, tapped on the table I was sitting at, and said, "Wait here."

Less than two minutes later he returned with what I knew to be his Invisibility Cloak. I wasn't supposed to know about it, but I did.

"Er…" he said, looking at the cloth.

I shrugged. "I know what it is. Hermione's already told me."

He raised his eyebrow. "Do girls tell each other everything?"

"Not everything," I sighed, sucking in a deep breath. "But that doesn't matter. What're you planning?"

"Get under," he mumbled, throwing the cloak over us. We walked together, silently, up to the Astronomy tower, where no students were currently attending class, thank goodness. He took the cloak off both of us, followed by his robes and shirt. "Heal them," he half-begged, half-demanded. I took a shaky breath and withdrew my wand from my waistband.

As I moved to his shoulder, he inhaled shallowly and whispered, "He threw me into a wall, right before your dad and your brothers came to rescue me. He does something like that every time I leave the house, so I know not to tell. Turns out this time he dislocated it. Had to pop it back into place myself. Bit down on my belt so I wouldn't scream."

Drawing in yet another audible breath, I said a simple enchantment and healed the wound. Then he shifted, turning so his back was to me. His entire back was covered in grotesque pink, red, and white scars, of belts and whips and what I guessed to be a very thin twig or tree branch.

As I went about healing them, he told me his stories. Beaten for his entire life, before he was even doing accidental magic. Locked in a cupboard for the first ten years of his life. Starved. Neglected. Insulted. Essentially forced into slave labor.

He told me the story about when his uncle caned him for asking how his parents died. He was forced to count the strokes. Twenty-nine before he passed out. He was six. Many of the scars on his back were from that. Others were from numerous occasions when his uncle would hit him with his belt, the end with the buckle. For most of them Harry didn't remember the reason, just that he had done it, and sometimes the age at which it had happened.

The tiny scars on his stomach and ribcage and chest were from when his aunt would throw bottles and glasses at him. He told me how she would call him to her every time she lit a candle, just so she could put out the match on his skin.

And when he embarrassedly lowered his pants and revealed his backside to me, it didn't even look like real human flesh, it was so mutilated. I healed every scar, shakily.

By sunrise, all his scars were gone and I felt so worn both emotionally and magically that I wanted to sleep the rest of my life. But Harry's emotions, naturally, were even more earth shattering.

"You can't tell anyone," he said, wiping a tear from my face. "I'm sorry. No one. Not a professor, not your parents, and definitely not Ron and Hermione. Nobody. Please."

I nodded. "It's your business anyway."

"Are you okay?" he asked, completely sincere and worried about me. This caused me to explode with tears, and he awkwardly looked around, as if he would find instructions on how to act written on the walls, and finally settled on grabbing my hand. "So…that's a no?"

I chuckled. "I just spent hours healing your scars from years of being abused, and you're asking _me_ if _I'm_ okay."

We had a small laugh together, and he let go of my hand, but only to envelop me in a hug. "Thank you, Ginny."

I nodded, and after that we climbed back under the cloak and wandered back to the Gryffindor common room, where we both agreed to get a little sleep before we had to go to breakfast and proceed with our Saturday as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, as if we shared no bond or secrets past our connections through Ron.

I skipped breakfast that morning in favor of catching up on the two nights of sleep I had missed. I then met up with Hermione for our makeup "study" session.

As we had only been in school one week, I knew this was not about her grades or exams or questions. It was probably about me, and her obtrusive concern for my wellbeing.

So when I sat down across from her in the library and asked, "Charms or Transfiguration?" I really did expect her answer of, "Neither."

I sat back in my chair and said, "Then what is your problem?"

"You," she whispered, and it bothered me how much this seemed to be tearing her up. "You barely came out of your bed last week and this week you barely ever entered your bed. What's going on?"

I sighed, deciding not to entirely lie. "It's the stress headaches." They had been rather bad the last couple days, reaching an all-time high the previous night as I healed Harry's scars.

Hermione's eyes collapsed into sympathy. Sympathy, not empathy, because she could not comprehend my issues. "What do you think you're so stressed out about?"

I hated questions like these—they required answers. Hermione never settled for 'I'm not sure.' So I sighed and said, "The Death Eaters just got to me, okay? It's no big deal, and I'm over it now. Just slept like a damn baby. So if you don't need me to help you study, I'm going to go."

Before she could object, I stood up and walked away. I continued walking. I didn't go to Gryffindor tower. I went to the Entrance Hall, I went to Hagrid's hut to visit the Blast-Ended Shrewts, I went to the lake, I went to the owlery to visit Hedwig and Pig, I went to the Divination hallway to visit Luna, who had better things to do than talk to me, so I wandered around the castle some more.

It was on the third floor that I saw it.

A fifth year Hufflepuff named Marty was in a secret passageway, snogging Decora Godfried.


	4. Chapter 4

My heart was crushed, and I didn't understand why, but she was happy, I could see they were both happy, and so I kept walking in my non-cognitive daze, traveling from place to place, thinking about Decora Godfried and Harry and the fucking Muggles that hurt him. I didn't often get violent urges, but thinking about all the scars I had had to heal, my rage mounted.

I didn't know what was going on with me, but I was scared. I knew my tiny, not even halfway-trained body was having difficulties with all the spells I had performed last night and the lack of sleep from the past week and the emotional Wronksi Feint I was taking. But honestly, thoughts could not cycle through my brain.

Somehow I was back in the common room, and Hermione was asking me what was wrong, and Ron was telling me to stop being dramatic, and Harry was skulking behind him, sneaking quick glances at me.

"I'm fine," I mumbled. "Just, uh. I have some things on my mind. But I'm okay."

I made quick eye contact with Harry. He seemed scared, desperate, almost telepathically imploring me not to tell them. And so, of course, I didn't.

I stood and shrugged. "You know, I just haven't slept in a long time. I'm going to go do that. But I'm fine, really."

I walked upstairs, and fell onto my bed, and I must have fallen asleep because I don't remember anything else after that.

Weeks went by, and I told no one. Harry and I barely spoke. Luna and I spent much more time together, as Decora was infatuated with the fifth year Hufflepuff named Marty, and life mostly returned to normal, everyone on edge awaiting the arrival of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, wondering what the Triwizard Tournament would entail.

The night Harry's name was pulled from the Goblet, bad things happened.

Harry and Ron fought, and Harry lost his best friend. Hermione tried to help a little, but that first night, he didn't want what she had to offer. So after she finally gave up and went to bed, I stayed behind.

"Ginny, I don't want to talk."

I shrugged, said okay, but did not move. I continued to sit there for the next hour. It was a talent of mine—patience. I knew how to sit and be quiet for an hour, waiting for someone to do something. I liked it, actually. I enjoyed the process of them coming to terms with their emotions. I liked to watch the flashes of each feeling across their face, to feel it overcome their souls.

When Harry finally spoke, he looked me straight in the eye and said, "I didn't put my name in that cup."

I nodded, and didn't need to be the "human lie detector" Decora claimed I was, and said simply, "I know you didn't."

"Someone else put it in there."

"That seems the most logical answer if you didn't put it there."

He glared at me. "Yeah, but who would have done it?"

I shrugged. "Dunno. By chance, have you any enemies?"

He straightened in his chair. "I didn't ask you to talk to me, okay? Why bother even talking to me if you're just going to mock me?"

I smiled vaguely, despite the fact that he had raised his voice. He was getting very, very angry with me, and for that I was glad. "All right, so you didn't put your name in the cup and you have no inkling as to who might have. And now you have to compete in the Triwizard Tournament, despite the fact that you are horrifyingly unqualified for such a task. But regardless, you are required to face it. You're worried, which is understandable. You're scared, even more understandable. You feel lost, a very justifiable feeling. Along with that you're a little paranoid and suspicious about who in the castle has it out for you and put your name in that cup. But you feel stupid for focusing on that, because you're bloody stuck in this situation. You're focusing on a lot of the detail emotions, rather than the big picture. You feel guilty, for taking the spotlight off Cedric. And embarrassed, for having the spotlight on you once again. And you're aggravated and disappointed in my git brother, who doesn't believe you, except you're wrong. He does believe you, he's just overshadowed again, and that's not okay with him."

Harry stared at me, dumbfounded. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Not even I was aware of half the things you just said, and you said them about me!"

I shrugged and waved it off. "It's a talent. Anyway. I understand what you're feeling, I understand you're probably feeling very lonely and abandoned and miserable, so if you need anything, if you need anyone, I'm here."

Harry stared at me a moment. "What's the difference between lonely and abandoned?"

I smiled. "Lonely means that you feel like you're the only one no matter who's around. Abandoned means you feel like you're the only one when there's supposed to be other people."

"How can you feel both?"

I shrugged. "You tell me, you're the one feeling them."

Harry rolled his palms over his forehead. "Bloody hell, Gin. How am I going to do this?"

I sighed. "You'll be fine, Harry. After all, you are you."

"And who's that, the Boy-Who-Lived?"

I simpered, looking down at the table. "No. No, uh. I mean, you're you. You're Harry. And he's wonderful and he will survive."

"How do you know?"

I shrugged. "How could I not?"

I kind of left him with that. Hey, for a girl who went in with no game plan, I came out quite well. I could tell he felt at least somewhat better by the end of it.

I began to spend a lot of time with Harry. It started when the next morning, he sat next to me at breakfast, after a dark look spread across his face upon recalling he could not sit next to Ron. I think, for the most part, it was due to loneliness. That part was obvious. Harry James Potter had but two best friends when he was fourteen: Ron, and Hermione. Ron was not speaking to him, and Hermione was determined to get them to make up, therefore splitting up her time between the two of them.

So when Hermione was with Ron, Harry was with me. And I would have thought that loneliness was the only factor coercing Harry into spending time with me, however even when Hermione was around, Harry encouraged my presence.

I didn't speak to Ron much in November, not unless it was to yell at him for being such a prat, and in turn he would yell at me for being a traitor or an idiot or what have you. I got in a lot of fights that month, trying to protect Harry. He always stopped me before I went to far. According to him it was never worth it.

Hermione and I helped Harry with his Summoning Charm for the first task. After he tied for first, he and Ron made up, and Harry and I sort of lost contact again. We only talked when it was to brainstorm what the clue in the egg was. It's not as if I minded. It had been ages since I'd spent any time with Luna, and Decora had broken up with the fifth year once she figured out he was only after her tits.

Decora was one of those girls who had to have started growing boobs at nine to achieve such beautiful mountains attached to her bloody chest. They were enormous, and that's coming from me, the girl who, in her fifth year, broke three spaghetti-strapped tanktops from the weight of her chest. As a result of her...gifts, boys often took advantage of her, and every time they tried, we would end up on a couch together in the Gryffindor common room, cuddling, me stroking her hair, as she told me all about what had happened and how sick she was of men and blah blah blah, and that would go on for two nights, then for a week she would insist she was taking a break from men, until she inevitably landed another boyfriend.

Many people accused Decora of being a slag or a slut or something of the sort. I knew it was ridiculous. She wasn't in it for sex, she wasn't in it for affection, she wasn't in it for herself at all. Almost every relationship she was in until her sixth year was solely for the benefit of her boyfriend. She wanted more than anything to make them happy. But she had a line, and they weren't allowed to cross it.

By the time the Yule Ball swung around and we were told we could not attend, upperclassman all around the school lined up to take Decora. Not many people asked me. I wasn't pretty yet, after all. But after the first weekend, I got about three invitations a day, which I didn't understand, and so resulted in me not accepting a single one.

About a week before the ball, Harry approached me in the common room, looking sort of dejected, but hopeful in the same manner. He knelt in front of me, folded his hands together and said, "Please tell me you don't have a date for the Yule Ball."

I smirked. "Last resort, then, am I?"

It was the relationship we had built. We were comfortable with the fact that we had bad things in our lives, and were not embarrassed or reluctant to address them with each other. Harry learned quickly there was no point in being that way, because I could always tell how he felt regardless of his attempts to hide his feelings or lie.

"Ginny, the whole school is going to be looking at me and so far I'm not only the young prat who doesn't belong, but I'm the loser without a date, too. You have to save me, Ginny."

I rolled my eyes, knowing that if he said my name that much in his speech, it meant a lot more than I could even tell on the surface. "_Fine_, I will go with you, but on one condition."

He groaned, sinking down into the chair across from me. "I should have known it call comes at a price."

"I will go to the Yule Ball with you, but I want Firebolt privileges for the rest of the year."

He groaned again, then stuck out his pinky. "It's a deal."

I hooked my little finger into his and grinned. "Nice doing business with you, Potter." He rolled his eyes. "So who had to reject you before you finally came to terms with your destiny?"

He barked with laughter. But I could tell behind it, he was sad. "Cho Chang."

I sighed. "You asked Cho Chang? And here I thought you were so wise."

"She's going with _Cedric_."

"Oh, so she likes legitimate champions, not just love children of the Goblet?"

Harry shoved me gently, and I grinned. It made me happy to see he was no longer upset when I joked about the bloody Triwizard Tournament. I think Ron helped with that a lot. Now that he was back on Harry's side, I think he felt a lot better about his fate.

"So have you brought it up with Ronald that you'll be taking me to the ball?"

"I think he'll survive. He's trying to convince Hermione to go with him right now."

I smirked. "That's surely not happening. She's already got a date."

"She has?" Harry gaped. "I thought she was just trying to mess with Ron."

I shook my head, remembering distinctly the day that I was sitting in the common room with a bunch of friends, jovial, when a horror-stricken Hermione had walked past me, grabbed my sleeve, and pulled me up to the dormitories with her.

"What is your problem?"

"Viktor Krum asked me to the Yule Ball."

I had raised my eyebrow. "And you said...?"

"_Yes._"

"Hermione, that's brilliant!"

"No! It's not! I've got to go on a date with the a star Quidditch player and a Triwizard champion! Girls are competing for his affection every day, how come I got it?"

I had rolled my eyes and said simply, "Hermione, this is no time for your self-loathing or lack of confidence. You're the brightest witch in this whole bloody school, and one of the most beautiful. You just hang around with my git brother all the time. You deserve positive attention, and you're getting it, so rejoice."

She had hugged me then. "You always know the right words to say. You always help. Thank you."

I looked over at Harry, bringing myself back to the present, and thought of all the wrong words that had been said to him. He had told me about the Dursleys calling him names, berating him for simple things, speaking foul untruths about his parents. I was suddenly filled with curiosity as to whether or not I spoke the "right words" to him when we conversed. He rarely seemed uncomfortable or sad in reaction, but who knows? He might have been the best actor in the world, or I was so infatuated with him my view was skewed.

Yes. Pathetic as it may be, I was infatuated with Harry Potter. I ignored it, though, as I knew he needed stability, and was determined to offer that to him with my friendship.

"So who is it?" Harry asked, and I realized it had probably been uncomfortably silent.

I grinned. "I can't tell you that. If you don't know yet, Hermione doesn't want you to know."

We talked for a while longer. Joked about Ron and Hermione and what we'd wear to the Ball and how I should wear my hair and if his robes should match my dress. Seeing as I only had one dress, and my mum had got him only one pair of robes, and they didn't match, we then contemplated enchantments to change the color of the fabrics temporarily. Now that we had settled that we questioned whose eyes we should complement with our matching clothes, before determining that one of us could change our eye colors temporarily so that both of our eyes would be properly complemented.

It was nice. It was the first time we'd spoken in a long time that we didn't discuss the egg. Harry seemed very light as we spoke, and I could tell he appreciated the distraction, without realizing he was even being distracted. Then, Hermione came over in a fuss wanting to complain to me about Ronald, and I winked at Harry.

"Remember, Potter. I only eat at five-star restaurants."

"Of course. The horse-drawn carriage will be here promptly at sunset, we'll take a quick lap around the grounds and then arrive regally."

"Horses? You belittle me so. Unicorns are your only option if you wish to get anywhere with me."

Harry tilted his head, looking thoughtful, a smile in his soul. "Noted."

As he walked away, Hermione turned to Ginny. "What on earth was that about?"

"Harry's escorting me to the Yule Ball."

Hermione immediately became skeptical. "Are you sure that's the best idea? You're friends. Only friends. Don't delude yourself, it won't end well."

"Speaking of deluding oneself," I said coolly. "How did Ronald take the news?"

Hermione's anger rose. "Ginny Weasley, I am trying to help you."

I smiled. "And I'm trying to help you. You're in love with Ron, and that's okay. But making him jealous on purpose is not okay."

"I am _not_ making him jealous on purpose!"

I looked at her. She was lying, and it took me no time at all to figure out the reasons behind her impossibly strong guilt. "You don't even fancy Krum. You can hardly tolerate him. You think he's just another vapid Quidditch player. Something pretty to look at. Well, think about this. Viktor Krum has his choice of about a hundred girls to take to this ball. But he chose you, and you're using him."

Hermione's face screwed up and her posture straightened as she became even more furious with me. "I do fancy him, thank you very much."

I sneered. "You don't know any more about him than Ron does about that veela."

That struck a chord, I could tell, and she left me in a huff, moving up to her dormitory. Meanwhile, I leaned forward in my chair, resting my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, trying desperately to quell the headache I was experiencing.

My perennial headaches reached a peak level of pain around Harry. I waved it off simply as being a side effect of the amount of stress he added into my life. The emotions he was constantly feeling poured off of his body and onto mine, making me not only feel what he was feeling, but become increasingly sad for him, that he had to deal with these all the time. Then there was his secret, the one I was unsure if I could continue keeping.

Then when he touched me, the pain became debilitating.

That one, I could not explain.

A week later I was walking down the stairs of the girls' dormitories to meet him. The girls whose dates were in the same house were all doing it, so we figured it would be a laugh. I walked down the stairs, slowly and dramatically, swaying my hips in the most overexaggerated manner possible. Harry took my lead and unlatched his jaw in a theatrical gape, bowing to me when I reached him.

"Your chariot awaits."

"Did you get the unicorns?"

He shook his head. "Thought I'd let you ride piggyback down to the Great Hall, though."

I grinned. "Good enough."

He started walking, and I said, "You're forgetting something." He looked confused for a moment, before smirking and sticking out his arm to me. I rolled my eyes. "No, you twat. Hermione wants to walk down with us since her date hasn't got access to the common room."

"So he is a Slytherin!"

I rolled my eyes again. "No he's not a Slytherin."

"Someone worse? A professor? A Slytherin professor? Snape?"

"Shut it, Potter, your train of thought derailed hours ago."

At that moment, Hermione walked down the stairs, in the most beautiful dress that she and I spent hours making even more beautiful, and sleek hair that we had spent hours and two bottles of potion transforming. I looked over at Harry and saw him gaping at her, but not with attraction, luckily, rather shock and awe.

"Hermione! You look..."

She glared at him and blew air upwards from her mouth to sweep the hair from her face. "Don't start. Let's just go."

Harry raised his eyebrows, and this time did not forget to offer me his arm as we went off.

"_Viktor Krum_?" Harry whispered viciously when he saw Hermione meet up with her date. "_Viktor Krum _asked Hermione to the ball!"

"Hermione is an extremely beautiful, intelligent girl who is perfectly deserving of men twice as good as Krum."

"How do you know how good a man he is? You don't even know him."

It was true that I did not know Krum. But something told me he wasn't who he claimed to be, and that he did not belong with Hermione. Maybe it was just my protective Weasley nature kicking in, I thought, and brushed off my concerns.

Harry and I chatted casually throughout the meal—the same things we always discussed. Quidditch, my brothers, and classes, interspersed with us mercilessly mocking each other.

I noticed Ron, sitting next to Padma Patil, kept glaring over at Krum and Hermione, who was doing a wonderful job of pretending she didn't notice, a much better job than Padma was.

After dinner, Harry and I danced, if even somewhat successfully. We didn't dance much, though, and eventually Harry went off to talk to Ron and I went off to see which of my friends had managed to secure dates. While Hermione, Decora, and Luna were my only true friends, I had about a thousand others that I just didn't hold to the same level.

Hermione looked busy, still dancing with Krum, and so I stopped by to talk to Decora for a while, whose date was talking with a some other bloke. Decora told me his name was Mateus, and he was a sixth year Ravenclaw. He had a mop of dark curly hair brushed out of his face and behind his ears, his gray eyes sloped slightly downward from the bridge of his nose, and he was tall and lean. Built perfectly for his position on the House Quidditch team—Keeper. Mateus was one of those very cute blokes that were just not half as cute if you hadn't seen them smiling. But once you do seem them smiling, it's so wonderful you fall in love with trying to make them smile perennially, so no one ever has to live without seeing that smile.

After Mateus wished to commandeer Decora once more, I walked around more, in a dress that I felt quite confident about. I had owled my mother to say that Harry and I were going to the ball together, as friends, and I needed a better dress. It was the first time I had ever requested my mother buy me clothes that wasn't underwear, so I felt uncomfortable asking her. My entire life I'd been fine with hand-me-downs and excited to buy clothes from the secondhand shop, and I almost felt erroneous to expect anything more than that.

But less than twenty-four hours after the fact, Hedwig came swooping in with a package—my new, fancy dress, and a letter from my mother telling me how happy she was. Hermione and I altered it a bit, lowering the neckline and heightening the bottom hem. It fit me well, showed off the things I had that were getting to be quite substantial, and so I walked around with confidence.

I looked to where Parvarti Patil was chatting with her date, Neville Longbottom, and one of Padma's roommates, a Ravenclaw whose name I did not know. Parvarti and I had become acquaintances, as she shared a room with Hermione and I spent a significant margin of my time in their room. Next to them was a boy, not participating in their lively conversation. He didn't look upset about it, though, just bored, and so I decided to walk over and join them. The boy was in my year, and I distinctly recalled Flitwick referring to him as "Mr. Corner."

After a quick hello, Parvarti returned to her conversation—something to do with something Herbological. Corner looked me over, first as I stood, then as I sat. "Hullo," he finally said, smiling. "My name is Michael Corner."

I smiled back. "Ginny Weasley."

"We have Charms together."

"And Arithmancy," I said. I had chosen to take Divination, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Muggle Studies, and Care of Magical Creatures my third year. I liked to keep busy, and as I had already helped Hermione with most of her homework in these classes, I knew I could handle them, as I magically knew most the information already.

"How do you like that class?"

I grinned. "Ever since I was six, I would yell at my mother if she didn't turn the volume on the radio to a prime number."

He laughed. Then he got kind of serious, looking over to our left. "So...you're here with Harry Potter?"

Harry was talking to Ron two tables over. Well, talking _at _Ron, really, because Ron was just looking up at Hermione and Krum and scowling.

"Yeah," I said. "Doing a friend a favor. He didn't want the implications or awkwardness of taking a girl who might even think for a second it was a date. Just not ready for that kind of drama, I guess." I shrugged. It was the story he and I decided to tell to anyone who asked, because he didn't want to sound pathetic, and most people were teasing the ones who brought younger students to the ball, because it was famously last resort.

Corner jerked his head towards his "date." "She's just in between boyfriends."

"And you're just in between girlfriends?" I simpered.

He chuckled. "I, uh. Yes, actually, I'm in between girlfriend number one and girlfriend number zero."

Of course, I knew this. Everyone knew these things in Hogwarts. Bloody small school. You knew who everyone was dating at all times. Even the professors knew who you were dating sometimes. Professor Burbage was known to give chocolate to students who had just been through a breakup. And so even though I hadn't even known the boy's first name until a minute before, I did know that he had been single all of his time so far at Hogwarts.

"Fancy a dance?" he asked, and I shrugged, a small smirk on my face. He took my hand and led me to the floor. As I passed Harry and Ron's table, I could feel the anger pouring off of it. It was intense, as if it would infect me.

_Ronald. That stupid git,_ I thought.

Corner and I danced for a while, and he seemed very content, and I almost forgot the anger that had been present at their table, until it started to get stronger, and closer.

Suddenly, Harry was standing next to us, tapping Corner on the shoulder. The younger boy jumped at the contact, looking terrified at Harry. I would have bet my life that he could sense Harry's anger too, because although his face was perfectly pleasant, it was intense.

"Could I talk to Ginny for a moment?" he asked Corner, who seemed to soften, then, smiled, and nodded, backing away from me with a sweet smile. Harry took my arm roughly and led me out to the Great Hall. I was very worried as to what was wrong with him, and my head burned, not at all aided by the anger Harry was feeling.

"What the hell?" he asked me, once we were away from most people.

I stared at him, trying to dissect his anger into something logical, and then it hit me. "You're jealous?"

"I am _not_ jealous," he hissed. "You're just supposed to be here with me and you're off running with some other bloke!"

"You were off with Ronald and Padma! I'm not going to sit there as Ronald grumbles over Hermione choosing Krum instead of him!"

Harry looked baffled. "Ron does not want Hermione."

I rubbed my forehead with my palms. "Harry. Why are you mad at me?"

"You should know, you always know!"

I sighed. "I do know." And I did. He was mad because he felt jealous, betrayed, and abandoned. I didn't know why he felt that way, though, I just knew that was it. "I just want to know if you know why you're this way, or if you want me to figure it out for you like always."'

"I thought we were gonna spend tonight together, making fun of all the sappy couples. I'd only gone over to say hello to Ron, but he just kept complaining about Krum."

I smirked. "Are you sure you didn't want to be one of those sappy couples yourself?"

I'd meant it as a joke—this was the kind of thing we joked about all the time. We joked about things. It's what we did. But for some reason, Harry didn't take it that way this time, and became very defensive.

"I thought that little crush you had on me was over?"

"What has this to do with _my_ crush on _you_? You're the one yelling at me for not paying you enough attention!"

"You're the one who said we should be a sappy couple!"

"I was joking! That's what we do, Harry, is we joke with each other. Don't you remember?"

Harry stared at me, seeming a bit embarrassed. "So you really weren't expecting anything out of this? You didn't think it was a date?"

I looked at him, incredibly worried that Harry had wanted something from me I hadn't provided. "Well...I hadn't thought. Just because...well, I asked for your Firebolt and everything—"

He relaxed instantly. "Okay. Good. It was just that Ron said I might be getting your hopes up or something, and it made me go a bit insane."

I raised an eyebrow. "Ron's a prat. Don't listen to him."

"I know," he chuckled. He looked abashed. "Sorry to take you away from that bloke, then."

I shrugged, looking at Harry. Harry, the boy I adored, the boy I pinned after. He was beautiful, really, he was. I wanted him, badly. Him, not Michael Corner. How rude would it be for me to date a boy when I want someone else? I had just berated Hermione for that very action. I could not kiss one boy when another's lips were on my mind. It wasn't fair to anyone.

"You know, I'm glad you did," I said, and maybe it was my imagination, but I would have sworn he brightened a bit after that. "He was kind of dull."

"This whole ball is a bit dull," Harry mumbled. "I don't need to be the center of attention anymore. Do you want to cut out? Try to make this Boxing Day a good one?"

"Is it already past midnight?" I chuckled quietly. "Yeah. Let's make today good."

I don't know what he saw in my eyes, but it must have been something, because suddenly he got a bit sad, and shot me a small smile. "Let's start by drinking gallons of tea and not sleeping."

"Okay," I grinned.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry and I did stay up all night, interrupted only when I had to soothe Hermione after her fight with Ron. I think I drew the short straw, because all Harry had to do was let Ron win a game of chess. And you don't even have to try for that to happen.

Something amazing happened that night. As Hermione was lying in her bed, crying, and I sat next to her stroking her hair, Parvarti came in and shot me a smile, before frowning at Hermione. She knelt down next to her, looking sympathetic and sad.

"Hermione, if it helps, you looked beautiful tonight," she whispered. Then she chuckled a little. "Like all those Muggles think mermaids look like."

"They also think they sing beautiful songs," Hermione chuckled. "Just sounds like a banshee unless you're underwater to hear it."

I laughed, before sitting straight up. They both looked at me. "Sorry," I mumbled, and turned to Hermione. "Can we finish talking tomorrow? I have to go take care of something."

She looked confused, then I think it clicked with her. "Oh. Yes. Yes, we can talk tomorrow, just go."

I ran downstairs, leaving a confused Parvati with Hermione, and sat next to where Ron and Harry were wrapping up their game.

"What?" Harry asked. Ron just looked annoyed.

"Do you know what Mermish sounds like above water?" I said, hushed.

"No," Harry drawled. "Why would I?"

I smirked. "But you do, Harry. You know what Mermish sounds like above water."

"_Why would I_?" he reiterated.

"The sodding egg, you twat," I hissed. "The egg is in Mermish. Above water humans can't understand it, but below water it's the clearest poetry you'll ever hear."

"So..."

"So you'll understand the clue once you get underwater."

Harry had smiled at me for that, and when I hugged him, he hugged me back. It was wonderful. He smelled like the ocean and achievement.

I don't know what happened much after that. We had a nice Boxing Day, discussing ways Harry might breathe underwater. That was pretty much the subject of conversation the rest of the break, and much like Fred and George would, Hermione and Harry would come to me for rationality—would it make sense if I did this? Would this charm last an hour? Could I transfigure this into this? If I added this to a potion of this this and this would the roots counteract the such-and-such property?

But by the time the Second Task occurred, even though we had found a way, Harry's damn chivalry kicked in and he gave up ultimate first place for saving a girl that never would have died anyway.

The next few weeks passed without consequence. Most of it was comforting Hermione in her sadness over scandal as faked by Rita Skeeter. She was hurt, but if there was one thing I knew how to do in life, it was comfort an upset Hermione. I apologised to Michael Corner for abandoning him, explaining Harry needed my help with some things. He asked me to the next Hogsmeade weekend, but I turned him down, blaming my overachieving schedule of twelve classes.

My mother had been so proud when I announced my course load to her. Bill had gotten twelve OWLs, and she hoped I would as well, obviously. Because of this, weeks flew by when there was nothing to focus on.

There were, however, a few notable occurrences in between the Second and Third tasks.

Firstly was my fight with Fervidine Ius. It took place in March, long after Ron's birthday and somewhere close to when the Irish would celebrate their patron saint, and I was sitting outside wondering when spring would come. Very few others were out, as temperatures were just climbing past frigid, but I sat with Luna and a friend of ours, a Hufflepuff named Oculus.

That's when she came out. She was flanked by Olivia Moore and Roger Ramsey, the children of two high-ranking pureblood families. The Iuses were famously Death Eater, the Moores had their Light-sided black sheep and the Ramseys had their Dark-sided black sheep. Olivia and Fervidine glared at me, Roger just sort of sulked behind, not appearing as though he was even slightly vengeful or angry toward me. He seemed uncomfortable, if anything, as if he knew exactly how wrong he was in participating.

"Oh look," Fervidine sneered. "It's Loony Lovegood and Oculus the Eyesore."

"Get a hobby, Ius," I snapped.

"Maybe I'll keep a diary!" she offered, still sneering. I stood.

"I recommend you leave now," I demanded coolly, but she continued to sneer and showed no indication that she wanted to leave.

"Oh, don't worry." She took a step toward me. "You'll probably wake up in a few hours and forget this ever even happened."

I took my wand from my pocket—I did not point it at her, just drew it, but I made enough of a show that she noticed. She shifted a little, uncomfortable, and a teeny bit scared, but continued on with her secret taunting.

That was the thing that bothered me about her. With Malfoy and Harry, he was obviously, outwardly provoking him. You could not tell Fervidine was mocking me unless you knew my story. And all these people knew was that I was taken into the Chamber of Secrets, tortured, and saved by Harry.

She continued to sneer. "You'll find I'm not petrified by your actions, you fucking blood-traitor slag."

I gripped my wand tighter, and she kept talking, this time looking at Oculus and chuckling. "More Mudbloods? Between this bitch and Granger you must really be trying to make up for something."

"Shut up, Ius," I hissed, pushing her shoulder to face me instead of my friends. "This is between you and me, don't turn it into anything else."

"You should have tried that line your first year."

Just as I raised my wand, the incantation on my lips, someone reached out and snagged the wand from my hand.

"Not worth it," Harry mumbled to me. Fervidine laughed.

"Harry Potter? I never would have thought. Here I was always imagining you'd go for someone more...dark. Mysterious. Private. Someone you can hold in your hands. Perhaps someone a little more...literary. Book smart, if you will."

Now without my wand, I resorted to leaping forward and punching her.

Normally, I'm not a violent person. Not at all. But something inside her—she _wanted_ to hurt me. And that killed me. It made me immeasurably sad that this person wanted to make me suffer, and through that sadness, I wanted to make her hurt. I knew I should have been the better person, I knew I shouldn't have let her get to me, but the things she said to me over the previous two years, the names she had called Hermione and Harry and the things she said about my family and my friends and her little cracks about the diary and Voldemort made me want to scream. It was like perennially being around a dementor, bringing up the worst memories humanly possibly and throwing them at you to such an extent that you couldn't remember anything else but them.

So I punched her. And immediately, the previous quiet Olivia Moore jumped on top of me to retaliate, forcing me to the ground and hitting my head against the ground several times before Harry pulled her off me, holding her up so they met eyes.

"Don't you touch her. Ever. Again," Harry spat, roughly tossing her near where Fervidine clutched her bleeding nose and mouth, face coated with tears. "Any of you," he breathed. He emitted a protective spirit, but not in the way that my brothers usually did. There was a personal element to it, as if we were connected in some manner and seeing me hurt physically harmed him.

"Whore!" Ius yelled as she and Olivia stomped away. Roger Ramsey stayed back, his hands shoved into his pockets, seeming remorseful, before sighing and following them reluctantly.

Harry immediately knelt down next to me. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," I murmured, standing up. My head was bleeding from Olivia's attack, but I didn't really notice or care. I felt a strange but familiar power surging through me, and it was almost as if my magic was building up and gathering in my hands, dying to be spread even further. "What are you doing out here?"

He stood up straighter. "Saving you."

I scoffed. "You didn't come out here just so you could be the sodding hero."

Oculus and Luna came up behind me, as reluctantly as Roger had left us. "Are...are you all right, Ginny?" Oculus asked.

I turned. "Yes. Yes, are you okay? She said awful things about you, she always has, but I want you to know they're not true."

Any self-deprecation present in Oculus before I said that disappeared. Luna looked at me.

"Your head is bleeding," she said, almost merrily. "Rather severely. You should have that fixed before the magbees get in and get your left and right all confused."

Harry stared at Luna, bewildered, and I just turned to her and mumbled, "Thanks."

Oculus stared at Harry and me, then took Luna's arm. "We're just going to go up to the library, get a start on that Transfiguration essay. Meet us up there, yeah?"

And they were gone. Harry raised his eyebrow again. "You have odd friends."

"Speaking of," I said, leaning against the wall of the patio. "where are Hermione and my git brother?"

He chuckled. "We're meant to be in the library studying for Charms with Hermione, but Ron decided he was going to go for a fly with the twins, and I decided I needed some air. What are you doing out here? It's bloody cold."

I shrugged. "Nobody bothers me out here."

"Evidently not," he mumbled, sitting down next to me, slouched forward with his hands in his pockets. "So Ginny Weasley, the most popular of her whole family, doesn't even enjoy it?"

I snorted. "The twins are more popular than I am."

"Not diversely," he said.

"Where did you learn all these big words?"

He laughed. "Hermione, Ron and I were talking about it. Ron was angry about that Slytherin you were hanging around. Hermione said you have a 'diverse collection of acquaintances,' which I assume means you have many friends in Slytherin." His lips twitched. "And a few enemies, it seems."

I nodded, my throat dry. "Yes, well. It's hard to cross lines without having people trying to throw you back on the other side, I guess."

"So she hates you because you spend time around Slytherins and you're a Gryffindor?"

"And a Weasley," I mumbled, begging for him not to realize I was lying. But he did.

"That can't be all," he said. "She said something about you falling for book-smart boys."

I looked determinedly at my shoes; he was catching on, I could tell. I needed only to come out. "Her father is higher-up Unspeakable in the Ministry of Magic. They work in the Department of Mysteries. People who work there deal with insane things. Things that can't leave the department. One of them was the fallout of the diary and the Chamber. He told her all about it. She knows everything."

Harry's turned to me in a panic. "What? Wh—did she tell anyone, who else knows, what happened?"

I shook my head. "No, she didn't tell anyone. Her father would have been fired had she chosen to. Besides, I scared her out of it last year. But now she's trying to get revenge."

Harry nodded, relaxing. We sat silent for a moment, and then he whispered, "What was it like?" He seemed nervous, as if he thought it was going to hurt me, but also so worried for me that I couldn't help but answer.

"Cold."

"Cold?"

"It was always cold, when he was coming. Like a dementor. My insides got cold. I'd wake up and it would be so cold, and I'd be lying on the floor in a place I didn't remember going to, sometimes a place I didn't even recognize, and I would be so cold. And my head hurt all the time. When he was trying to get in, my head hurt. I'd wake up four hours later in a completely different place, and it would be intolerably cold. Like I didn't even had any blood to keep me warm anymore. Just...I dunno. Ice water. And when I wrote to him...my hands surged with strength. Magic."

I looked down at my hands, acknowledging mentally that I felt the same feeling at that moment, as I did whenever I felt exceptionally emotional.

"But the thing is, yes. It was cold and scary and I blacked out and it hurt and I felt out-of-control and untamed, but he would show me things. His memories. I wanted them, because they were warm. I wanted to see them because I felt like I shared so much of my life with him, and when he shared his life, it felt real. Like a real friendship. And the warmth, that made it feel real too. He would help me with schoolwork. He would give me advice. Lots of it was bad, but...he listened. He listened and responded and...I hadn't gotten much of that before. So it was welcomed. And whenever I wrote to him about the cold and the pain and the blackouts, he'd explain it. Somehow, he'd explain it."

Harry kept staring at me, I guess. I wasn't even paying attention to the things he was feeling, my sadness and guilt were too strong.

"I can't fucking believe I listened. That I believed the words he wrote. I can't believe I trusted him. How strange is it that I can honestly say Tom Riddle was my first real friend?"

That's when Harry suddenly became defensive. "That's not true."

"I told Tom more about myself than anyone else on this planet. Than Hermione, than any of my brothers, than you. Nobody knows me like Tom Riddle knows me."

Harry turned to me, his entire body tense, nervous, and sad again. "We can change that, if you want."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," he said hesitantly. "I wouldn't mind knowing more about you. You're my friend, but I feel like I don't know the first thing about you. Meanwhile," he mumbled, now doleful, angry, and shy. "you know more about me than anyone. And I've barely even told you anything. You just...know. Like magic." He flashed a small smile. "Makes a bloke feel pretty inadequate."

I turned to Harry, putting my hand on his thigh, as the stress got to me again. "Harry, I'm very glad you want to do this for me, but I just...I'm not good at opening up to people. I've tried it, and I'm not good at it. I don't want to disappoint you."

Harry turned to me, and furrowed his eyebrows, considering something very determinedly. He even opened his mouth a couple times to speak and decided against it, before saying, "Ginny, I honestly don't believe there is a thing you could plausibly do that would make me disappointed in you."

"I could join the Death Eaters and murder my entire family."

He smiled; that made me feel good. "But you wouldn't. That's the thing, Gin. Anything that would make me disappointed in you, is not something you are actually capable of. You would never betray me, you would never hate me, you would never distrust me. You'd never break my trust."

I looked at him. "I'm sorry."

He stared at me, confused. "Why?"

"Because I can tell far too many people have betrayed you, hated you, distrusted you, and broken your trust," I said quietly. "But it's okay now. You have me, and you have Hermione, and you have Ron, and you have Sirius, and you have Remus."

"Ron's distrusted me several times," Harry whispered, though it wasn't on purpose. "Even Hermione's had her moments. And Sirius has lied to me and Remus left me alone all those years. I don't blame him, for leaving my alone, I just...can't help but think that he did it."

I stared at his profile, letting the gravity of this sink in. "So...?"

"You're the only one."

"The only one...?"

"That I completely, utterly trust," he said. "You've proved that to me this year."

I nodded, completely baffled and overwhelmed by his sincerity, trying to grasp the weight of the words he had just spoken. Meanwhile, Harry laughed, standing up.

"Sometimes, I wish I could read your mind like you read mine," he said. "It would be much more useful on you. You tend to be...cryptic."

With that, he had walked away, leaving me breathless, as always, without even intending to, as always.

The second notable occurrence took place in Defence Against the Dark Arts class near the beginning of April. Moody looked around the class threateningly, which was his favorite way to start class, and settled his eyes on me for a moment, another hobby of his. But his eyes spent a long time on me and did not leave even as he spoke.

"Today we will be working with the Unforgivable Curses."

A murmur flew across the room as he continued, now taking only his magical eye off me, leaving his regular one to meet mine. "The fourth years worked briefly with them at the beginning of the year, fifth years have studied them, sixth years have been working for quite a few weeks, and seventh years are fully immersed."

"Do you want us to cast them?" a voice asked from a body I did not note, as I was determined not to break eye contact with Moody. Something brewed inside him, the same feelings I had gotten from him all year. There was something not right about this man, and I knew it. He wasn't who he claimed to be. His intentions were not good. I didn't know if he was just a nutter, or if he was really, truly evil, but I knew he was not good.

"No, this is _Defence_ _Against_ the Dark Arts, you twit," he barked, finally breaking eye contact with me to glare at whoever had uttered such a ridiculous question, before returning to me. I could have sworn I sensed a sneer or a smirk or some triumphant expression hiding beneath his serious face as he explained, "You will be defending yourself against the Unforgivables I cast on you."

I darkened, and he brightened upon seeing this, finally turning away, having received the reaction he desired. "Imperius Curse. What does it do?"

"It makes the recipient blindly follow the orders of the caster," I called out bitterly.

"Good, Weasley. Have five points," he said, as if it were the kindest gift one could ever give. "And the Cruciatus?"

"It's a torture spell meant to cause intense pain. Prolonged exposure has been known to cause insanity."

Moody was facing me, now beginning to walk toward me. "And the Killing Curse, as we all know, causes instantaneous death on all those but Harry Potter," he said, dryly, and an awkward, hesitant, nervous chuckle escaped a few lips in the classroom. "But we needn't dwell on the past when the future poses such a threat. Constant vigilance."

Moody now stood in front of my desk. "Well, Weasley, since you seem to know so much about the Unforgivables, maybe your knowledge extends to defending yourself against them. You'll be first."

All eyes turned to me, but I continued to make eye contact with him. "Stand, Weasley." I stood. "I'm going to cast the Imperius on you, and you are to fight me."

"But, sir," Decora piped bravely. "Isn't it illegal?"

"Dumbledore wants you to be prepared," he growled. "I could sit here and teach you a thousand countercurses or I could teach you how to grant yourself an opportunity to _use_ those countercurses.

"Now," he said, turning to me again. "Fight me. _Imperio_."

The thing that surprised me most was it wasn't cold. I expected it to be cold, like Tom. But it wasn't, it was warm, and blissful, and I melted into it for a moment, not really noticing anything but the fact that it was wonderfully warm and I wanted it to stay that way.

An echoing voice that vaguely sounded like Tom's ordered me to do a cartwheel. My first instinct was to obey, so the warmth would stay, and I lunged forward with my left leg to begin.

But then, my panic set in.

_Don't do it. Not again. Don't do it._

I willed my leg to come back, to straighten, but it wouldn't because the warmth kept telling me to do a cartwheel. But I knew, in the back of my mind, that if I listened to the warmth, it would be no different than listening to the cold, and I refused to put myself through that. But as the warmth screamed at me to obey it, and the back of my mind screamed at me not to, the front got confused and sent me careening into the wall, in an effort to move while still not moving.

However, I had not done a cartwheel.

The class stared at me, having not known what the Imperius was supposed to look like, but assuming it wasn't what they had seen. "Now that," Moody growled. "is how you ward off the Imperius Curse."

I was slumped up against the wall, my shoulder throbbing in pain, feeling dislocated. The magic I had felt after waking up from one of Tom's attacks was present in my hands and chest, swirling around, waiting to be used. I was shivering, unconsciously, unable to catch my breath, feeling that pain in my head again.

"Up, Weasley, we're doing it again."

I whimpered. "No. Please, no."

Moody seemed to gain a sick pleasure from my adamant refusal. The students seemed concerned, and worried, both altruistically and selfishly, because they were next.

"_Imperio_."

_Stand up_, the warmth told me this time, and now the pain was gone and I just felt relaxed and warm. So I stood, because now I was able to.

_Attack Colin Creevey_, the echoing voice ordered, followed by Tom's voice demanding the same of me. I took one step forward, then my own voice began to speak, louder than the echoing voices fighting to tell me what do first.

_No. No, no, no NO. Never._

And I fell to my knees, clutching my head as the echoing voice told me to attack Colin again. I didn't know what was happening around me, but something was wrong, and the bliss wasn't there any more, and the warmth was gone, and I was started to get panicked, and cold. The echoing voice wasn't talking to me anymore, just Tom's, telling me to attack, telling me to kill, and then there was my voice, saying familiar words in a language I wouldn't normally understand, and I was ordering the basilisk to attack, and it was cold, it was so fucking cold, and I thought my brain was tearing in half, and everything was dark and cold and then, suddenly, it was gone.

When my eyes opened, I was still in the classroom, and Moody was lying next to me. Once he saw I was awake, he seemed satisfied, and stood, announcing, "Right. Creevey, you're next."

Colin Creevey looked petrified, but stood, and after having jumped from table to table on one foot, seemed to exit the Imperius without the adverse reaction I had experienced, but also without having fought it at all.

Decora turned to me as Moody began to curse more students.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes."

"What happened?" she asked, her concern raw and intense. I was still shaking, trying to fight away the cold that was still present in my stomach.

"I dunno, what did you see?"

"I saw you jump into a wall and then beg Moody not to cast the spell on you again, but he didn't listen. He made you stand up and then all of a sudden you were on your knees, screaming and shaking and banging your head around. He had to stun you just to get you out of it, and then when he ennervated you, you were fine again."

I stared at her, but didn't have time to respond before Moody called Decora as his next victim. She was also his last, for we then exited the classroom for lunch, at which point Decora pulled me aside and said, "But it didn't even hurt. I don't understand."

I stared at her. "That didn't hurt you?"

"No. Did it hurt you?"

I chose to only nod, rather than admit that the pain was like being under the Cruciatus. Not that I would have been able to compare the two at age thirteen, but now, older and wiser and experienced, I can rightly say that the two curses induce the same amount of pain.


	6. Chapter 6

_'Tom, what if I'm the one hurting people.'_

_'We all hurt people at some point, Ginevra. It's normal. You have power now. You are powerful and you are using that power. There is no shame in that, there is no wrong in that.'_

_'But I'm hurting people.'_

_'Some day, it will all make sense. Everything comes at a price—power, peace, salvation. Even time costs lives. It's all part of the process, and one day, you will understand.'_

_'What was it like the first time you hurt people?'_

_I was pulled through the pages at the time, and an exciting warmth filled my body as I saw the young boy I knew to be Tom Riddle walking into a cave with another young boy and girl I did not know. Tom was young at this point, not yet aware he was magic, but old enough to know he was different, and capable. He led the unknown boy into the cave, but the boy was scared, fighting, screaming, ordering the "freak" to get his hands off, as the girl tried to stop Tom._

_Tom threw the boy into the cave, and I ran after them, hurt that I couldn't help the boy who was begging for help. Suddenly, the unknown boy was screaming even louder, crying, begging for him to stop. The girl leaped onto Tom, before she too rolled off him, screaming. When they stopped, the girl stood up immediately, while the boy stayed there, crying._

"_Freak! Freak! You're such a _freak_!"_

_Then she was on the ground again. I shook my head._

"_Get me out Tom," I ordered._

"_HELLLP! HEEEELP!" the girl shrieked, her tiny legs flailing around, and tears filled my eyes._

"_Get me out, Tom, get me out, get me out, get me OUT!"_

"Ginny! Ginny!"

I sat straight up, and saw the darkened outline of Decora next to me, looking out to see my other dorm mates crowded around my bed, save Scylla, who, ironically enough, could probably sleep through a Scylla crashing through the ceiling of our room and barking all night long.

"Sorry," I mumbled. "Nightmare. Go back to sleep. I'm okay."

It's what I told them every night this happened, and every night they never believed me. They went to sleep, though, and I looked at the clock. It was after four in the morning—no point in going to sleep just to wake up again. So I had a shower, got dressed for the day, and walked down to the common room, where Harry sat. I remembered that it was the day of the third task.

"Hello," I said from the staircase, and he looked at me, and smiled.

"Hullo."

"You ready for today?" I asked, sitting down across from him. I knew, however, that he was. I'd spent the last weeks teaching him spell after spell after charm after curse after hex after jinx—anything that I thought might even vaguely help him. He was ready, even if he wouldn't admit it.

"Nervous," he admitted.

I shrugged. "It's nothing more than a Quidditch game, if you think about it."

He laughed, but I could tell it hadn't settled him at all. "Yeah, except with a lot more eternal glory." I smiled, and he looked at me oddly. "What you doing up? The sun's not even risen."

I shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."

He leaned forward, cautiously. "Are your nightmares getting worse, too?"

In an effort to work on opening up more, I'd begun to tell Harry whenever I had nightmares. Not what they were about, just when I had them, and how bad they were, and if I woke up screaming or not.

I nodded. "Yes. I assume that means yours are, then?"

He placed a finger on his scar. "Won't stop hurting."

"Maybe it's just nerves," I shrugged. "My head always hurts when I get stressed." But when I looked at him, I added, "Though I suppose there's no way I could know. I bet if I felt it, I'd know what you know. That danger's coming."

Harry looked at me, and he sighed. "What did you dream about?"

I drew in a breath sharply; this was the first time he asked me such a question. I stared intently at the floor, closing my eyes. "Just Chamber things."

"What kind of Chamber things?"

"You wouldn't understand," I mumbled. He seemed insulted.

"Try me."

I opened my eyes. "Tom showed me things. I remember them."

"What did he show you?"

I shook my head. "I'm not telling you that."

"Why not?"

"Because," I said, and I stood up, and walked away.

XoXoX

My parents and my brothers came in for the third task, to support Harry. When it came time to send Harry off to the pitch, the way Hermione hugged him, you would have thought he was dying. Ron clapped his back, as manly as possible, mind you, and the three of them looked at me.

Suddenly, I felt as though I was encroaching. The loyalty that glued these three together was something I knew Harry would never understand, and I could not believe he put his trust solely in me, when these two people would jump in front of a Killing Curse for him a hundred times if they were given the chance, no matter what Rita Skeeter was saying, no matter what Malfoy was saying, no matter whose name popped out of what cup. These three were together forever.

But now, they looked to me, and all I did was place my tiny hand on Harry's chest, and tell him simply, "There is nothing you cannot overcome."

It was sappy, and it was probably on par with Hermione's death hug for situation-appropriate actions, but I didn't care. I needed him to know that.

I sat in between my mother and Hermione during the task. Ron was on the other side of Hermione, and Bill sat in front of me so I could absentmindedly play with his hair, as he always let me do when he could tell I was nervous.

We were all on our feet when we saw Harry and Cedric reach the cup. And we saw the strange argument they had, and that they grabbed it simultaneously. And when the cup became a Portkey and transferred them to the graveyard, the whole crowd mumbled with excitement and curiosity, except me. It was I who cut through all the confusion, with my loud, ear-splitting scream.

It felt as though my body, soul, and mind were all ripping in half. I had never felt such pain in my entire life, not even when Tom Riddle was torturing me, not even when I was under the Imperius. I had _never_ felt this. It was as if something that had been dormant inside of me was suddenly awakened and was stretching, threatening to take over my mind, insisting that it share what little space I had inside my body. My body shook with the effort to contain the energy inside of me. The magic that had previously just built up inside me tore through my muscles and skin, bursting out. Darkness completely consumed my vision and mind, and all I could imagine doing was screaming.

When I opened my eyes, I was on the ground. I tried to stand up, but I couldn't, as if I was not in control of my own body. In fact, I realized I was not in my own body at all, and began to panic. It didn't seem as though I was in the stands of the Quidditch pitch anymore, or even anywhere in Hogwarts. It was dark, and gloomy—it was a graveyard. I could see Harry and Cedric, their wands out, staring at a cloaked figure across from that, as a green spell shot from the cloaked figure and hit Cedric square in the chest, knocking the life out of his eyes.

Yes, I saw it. I saw it all. I was there the whole time, crawling around the floor as Tom was resurrected, as he spoke to Harry, as he tortured Harry, as he dueled Harry. I saw the Priori Incantatem, and I saw the ghosts come from his wand, and I saw Harry disappear, and then I felt intense pain again as Tom roared with frustration, and this pain was enough to knock me out again.

When I awoke the second time, I was in my own body again, and I awoke with a start, in such intense pain and so horrifyingly overwhelmed by the cold that I bent over in my bed, grasping my head, unable to hold back the cry that begged to escape my lips. But I managed to calm myself quickly, and assess the situation.

I was lying in the hospital wing, and my family and Hermione were all around my bed and the one next to me, which I assumed housed Harry. Curiously, there was a large black dog next to the bed—Sirius, I thought, desperate to remember anything but the things I'd seen.

When I woke up, all eyes had changed to me, and they began to swarm my bed.

"Are you okay?"

"What happened?"

"Are you hurt?"

A thousand questions filled the room, so many I couldn't even keep track of them. I looked around, and tried to focus on the emotions filling the room, knowing that cataloging them would soothe me, but I couldn't pay attention to anything but the pain and my own upset.

"Is he okay?" I asked, my voice breaking and strained, settling my eyes on Harry.

"He will be," Mum told me, putting her hand on my arm. My hands were swelling with magic again, twitching as a result. But they'd never been this bad before. It felt like every ounce of my power was housed in my hands, even though no other parts of me felt notably weaker.

"Cedric..." I whispered, but my voice still broke. "Cedric is dead."

They all stared at me. "How did you know?"

I looked at them, my eyebrows knitted together. "What happened?"

"Harry and Cedric were Portkeyed away by the cup, and as soon as they were, you started screaming," Fred said, quietly.

"Collapsed onto the ground and we couldn't snap you out of it," George continued.

"Mum and Professor McGonagall brought you up here, and as they did, Harry came back, clutching Cedric's body," Bill explained, still quietly. Everyone was being so quiet, but I was too cold and too upset and too much in pain to try to figure out why.

"So he is dead," I mumbled, closing my eyes against a cry of pain as a sharp pain hit behind my forehead. "I don't understand. What happened, why were they in a graveyard?"

Sirius's head suddenly turned to us, and he ran over until he was next to my mother, putting his front paws on top of the bed. His reaction caused me to address him, and only him.

"There was a graveyard, and I was on the ground, and there were these ghosts and this long incantation and this really, really red potion and all these Death Eaters."

I kept babbling the small bits I was willing to let myself remember, trying to explain to them the things I had seen and what had gone on, but it just seemed to be making them more confused, which upset me more because they couldn't explain the things that I was confused about if they were confused about the things I knew, like why I was on the ground in the graveyard or how I had gotten there or why it wasn't my body or why nobody noticed me or, if they had, why they didn't care.

Finally, my mother grasped my arm tightly, and put her other hand on my cheek, stopping me. I looked at her, imploringly.

"I'm not crazy," I whined.

"I know, dear," she whispered softly, tears in her eyes. "It's been quite a night. I'm going to ask Madam Pomphrey to sedate you."

"No, I don't need to be sedated!" I argued, throwing her hands off me. "I know what I saw! I was there, I was there! I saw it! Tom, he's back, he's—Mum, we need to stop him, he's going to hurt people again. Mum, this is _Tom_."

I threw quite the fit trying to prevent Madam Pomphrey from pouring her damned potion down my throat, but at one point the white-hot pain behind my forehead became too severe, and I succumbed to crying out, arching my back upward. At this point she took advantage of my state and forced the potion down. I fell into a blissful sleep.

The third time I woke up, it was much brighter outside and my family wasn't in the hospital wing anymore. A look to my left told me Harry wasn't either, since his bed was now occupied by the sleeping form of my mother. The cold and the pain were still present, but they were more tolerable.

I looked to my right and almost wasn't surprised to see Professor Dumbledore sitting there, sitting calmly, as if he weren't currently the busiest man on earth dealing with the fallout of Tom's return.

"Miss Weasley," he nodded. "I imagine you have an abundance of questions for me, but if you would begin by explaining to me exactly what happened to you last night, it would be of much help to both our causes."

And so I explained to him, about the pain and being on the ground and seeing Cedric and the Death Eaters and the potion and the ghosts and Tom being reborn.

"You were seeing all this from the ground?" he asked, when I finished by explaining that Tom's rage had forced me to exit the scene. I nodded.

"I could see it all, but I couldn't control myself. I was crawling around the ground, and I was small, as if I wasn't in my own body. Why did nobody notice me, Professor?"

He smiled sadly. "Nobody noticed you, Miss Weasley, because you did not witness this scene through your own body, rather through your consciousness."

I sighed. "I figured. So...who's body was it, then? Why did nobody notice it?"

"From your account and Harry's, I'd say that your consciousness became one with the consciousness of Voldemort's snake, Nagini."

I looked at him. "Sir, I don't understand. How is that possible?"

"It would seem," Dumbledore said greatly. "That upon trying to overtake your body, Voldemort succeeded in leaving parts of himself behind, claiming a very, very, very miniscule part of you, but still, enough to matter."

I took a deep breath, unable to fully process that yet, for I had too many questions to dwell on something I'd have to live with forever.

"Why would that give me a connection to his snake?"

"Your experience with the diary was a...unique one, to say the least. And you will find that because of that, you are connected to certain pieces of Voldemort that others don't even know exist."

I stared at him, my eyes intense. "Does this mean that there are more diaries out there?"

Dumbledore seemed impressed. "Very astute of you, Miss Weasley. I suppose you could say that yes, there are more diaries in the world, but none as powerful as the one you encountered."

"I don't understand, sir."

He smiled. "Let me assure you that you will not be hearing of anymore individuals possessed by the memory of a Dark wizard."

I sighed with relief. I went back to my questions. "Why was I even there in the first place?"

"Your connection with Voldemort must have taken you there. The parts of him that exist in your consciousness pulled you to the moment, using the closest familiar thing, Nagini, as your carrier."

I nodded, trying to make sense of it. "And why did it hurt so much?"

Dumbledore stared at me over the top of his half-moon spectacles. "It would appear that your mind is treating Tom Riddle as a virus, and is desperate to expel him from your body every time he flares up, so to speak."

I couldn't help but grin a bit at that; however, it did nothing to stop the lump in my throat or the hole in my chest. "So...how does this all work, exactly, sir?"

He looked at me remorsefully. "Unfortunately, unlike in Harry, I had not anticipated a connection between you and Lord Voldemort, and therefore know nothing about it." He met my eyes. "That will very soon change, Ginny."

It was the first time he had said my first name, and it made me feel safe. He stood up, folding his hands into his sleeves. "It would appear that you are about to become a very integral part of the impending war. But, luckily, there is still plenty of time to rest and enjoy the summer."

I sat there, feeling very...thirteen, as I watched him walk away. When he was about halfway to the door, I called out, "Professor Dumbledore!"

He turned to me.

"Yes?"

"I have some of his memories," I informed him, the flashes overtaking my mind. "Some of them...I don't think he meant for me to see some of them. I'll give them to you, if you ever need them."

He scrutinized me for a moment, as if he were deciding which muffin to eat this morning, and then simply nodded. "Thank you, Miss Weasley. I might very well take you up on offer, so long as you take me up on the offer for tea sometime next year. I daresay you'd be a thrilling conversationalist once the topics are...lighter."

He left, and I slumped against the pillows, perfectly ready to collapse into myself, but I looked over at my mother first. She was lying on the bed, and her eyes were now open, and tear-filled.

"I reckon you heard it all, then?" I mumbled.

She stood up. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head, and she and I crashed together into an embrace, staying that way for quite a while as she cried and I mourned the loss of my true self.


End file.
